Sports: Top Stories

Colorado Avalanche's decline has left fans disillusioned

Ryan O'Reilly, left and Matt Duchene are the two biggest reasons for hope for the near future for the Avalanche. (Doug Pensinger, Getty Images)

Avalanche fans used to walk around with a certain level of guilt. Like the lottery winner who won on the first try while the serial purchasers tore their tickets in frustration, Avs fans couldn't help but feel blessed by the hockey gods. Now, they can't help but feel cursed by a slap shot of karma to the face.

The Avalanche, which stormed into town in 1995 and won a Stanley Cup in its first season, and added a second Cup in 2001, will miss the playoffs for the fifth time in seven seasons and have fallen to the bottom of the league standings with a 12-21-5 record.

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Fans who once filled the air at the Pepsi Center with loving chants of "Let's go Avs" now fill page after message-board page with long, bitter screeds against the team and how it's run. The team is an afterthought on local sports radio. Sellouts at the Pepsi Center — a record 487 consecutive from 1995-2006 — are rare. The Denver TV market, once among the ratings leaders nationally for hockey, is tanking.

Of the 22 American NHL cities, Denver is the only one to have seen a television ratings decrease from last season. According to Sports Business Journal, Avalanche games are being seen in an average of 16,000 households, down 11 percent. Colorado is averaging 15,416 tickets sold, which ranks 26th in the 30-team league. While most losing teams inspire vitriol among its fans, what's happening with the Avs seems a level or two deeper. Fair or not, there is a perception among many of the team's die-hard but shrinking fan base that management doesn't care what's going on.

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Why, fans beg to know, has there been no shakeup in the coaching or front office ranks with another season spiraling out of control? Coach Joe Sacco and general manager Greg Sherman are constant targets of disgruntled fans, along with owner Stan Kroenke, who has had one of the league's lowest payrolls for years.

"Obviously, we deserve the criticism we're getting right now," said Sherman, in his fourth year on the job. "I understand and appreciate the passion of our fans, for what they feel for this franchise. I certainly understand the criticism that we're getting. We deserve it. That's a reality."

Meanwhile, the losses keep piling up, and the team's lack of scoring punch continues. Colorado is on pace to finish 25th in goals scored, a trend it bucked in the 2009-10 season, finishing sixth, but the Avs' next-best season over the past five had them 18th in goals in 2010-11.

The Avs can't score, and they can't generate any buzz.

"I've found that I've moved from being frustrated to just being kind of apathetic," said David Driscoll-Carig nan, a longtime fan and editor of the Avalanche blog Milehighhockey.com. "A couple of years ago, when the Avalanche first started losing and first started being frugal with the payroll, I was really upset about the way the team was being run and how they were playing. My expectations are so low now that I barely have any passion about the team."

Claude Lemieux, who played for the Avs during the glory years, said the team's lack of spending has contributed to its decline. The Avs have ranked in the bottom 10 teams under the salary cap the past four seasons.

"Colorado has been quite a few years now where they can't seem to get it going. I think their hands have been tied a little bit with the salary structure," Lemieux said. "Not to say that if you spend to the cap that you're going to be successful, but in today's game, it's tough to survive and thrive when you aren't spending along with the top third of the other teams."

A rebuilding strategy

After his team finished 28th in the 2008-09 season with a large payroll ($54.3 million, less than $3 million under the NHL's salary cap at the time), Kroenke stated that he would start a rebuilding process. The team traded highly paid players such as Ryan Smyth, Scott Hannan and Jose Theodore, and elected not to re-sign several others whose contracts were up. The Avs would go with youth. They would rebuild through the draft. They would sign few free agents.

Right or wrong, they've stuck to that strategy.

Starting with the 2009 NHL draft, when the Avs got youngsters Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly, the team started over. For a while, the rebuilding plan appeared ahead of schedule.

Under rookie GM Sherman and Sacco, the Avs surprised everyone by making the playoffs in 2010. The frugal signing of goalie Craig Anderson on the free-agent market made Sherman look like a genius. Fans envisioned big things just around the corner with young talent such as Duchene, O'Reilly, Kevin Shattenkirk, Chris Stewart, Paul Stastny, TJ Galiardi, Wojtek Wolski, Peter Mueller, Brandon Yip, David Jones and John-Michael Liles on the roster.

Now, three years later, only four players from that group remain. Anderson now plays in Ottawa, where he led the Senators to the playoffs last season and was on track to win a Vezina Trophy this season before getting injured.

One of the four — O'Reilly — probably wouldn't have played for the Avs this season had it not been for the Calgary Flames forcing Colorado's hand with a two-year, $10 million offer sheet that the Avs matched. Things got so bad between O'Reilly and the Avs that O'Reilly's father, Brian, ripped the team's management style, saying it suffered from a philosophy of "external boss management" that creates a paranoid, scared atmosphere among players.

Brian O'Reilly wasn't the first father of a player to rip Avs management. After Sherman traded Stewart and Shattenkirk to St. Louis in 2011, Hall of Famer Peter Stastny, the father of Paul and a franchise icon, bitterly denounced the move.

"This young team was ready to challenge, almost, for a Stanley Cup this season. They were so good. All they needed was some more chemistry, and some synergies. Instead, they destroyed the team," Stastny told KMOX radio in St. Louis. "I don't know what they were thinking in the Colorado organization. I should not have said this, but I'm so, so mad what they've done to this team. They've moved the team about two to three years back again."

Stastny's words seem prophetic now.

Colorado acquired Erik Johnson in the deal. At 23, he has a bright future. The Avs also have a promising prospect from the deal in defenseman Duncan Siemens, but the trade has been lopsided in favor of the Blues. Stewart and Shattenkirk are top players for a St. Louis team that likely will make the playoffs a second consecutive season. Johnson entered this week without a goal and hasn't been the dominant, two-way defenseman the team had hoped.

Paul Stastny has been the focus of much criticism too. Despite being the team's highest-paid player, with a $6.6 million cap hit, he has averaged well under a point per game in recent years.

Big win, then goodbye

It is hard to believe that just four weeks ago, the Avs routed a Chicago team on a 24-game point streak, then followed it up with a dramatic overtime victory over San Jose. The Avs were 10-10-4. The lowly Edmonton Oilers were next on the schedule. A 4-0 loss to the Oilers started another Avs collapse. They lost six of their next seven games to fall into last place in the Western Conference.

"Maybe we took them too lightly," Ryan O'Reilly said, thinking back to that loss to the Oilers. "We like playing against the big teams, and that's a good thing, but when it comes to other teams, we've had problems like that. I think it's something where we have to mature in that area."

Recently, things deteriorated to the point that Jones — signed to a four-year, $16 million contract last summer — was a healthy scratch. Many of Sacco's coaching decisions have been second-guessed by fans — such as sending Tyson Barrie back to the minors instead of benching defensemen such as Greg Zanon, Ryan O'Byrne or Matt Hunwick. In his fourth season, Sacco was 126-129-28 heading into Saturday's game.

"We expect, and I expect, better results. We believe this is not the position that we should be in," Sherman said. "When this shortened season was about to begin, we were looking forward to it with a lot of excitement. I understand the frustration of our fans. We need to be better."

Many fans have heard that too much the past few years. And, they've stopped buying it.

"Everyone already knows what's going to happen next. Joe Sacco will probably be let go and maybe Greg Sherman too, which is too bad because I think both have done well with what they've had to work with," Driscoll-Carignan said. "And the Avalanche will replace both with another guy from in house. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Snooze. It's a vicious circle except the circle isn't vicious, but incredibly dull and predictable."

From Stanley Cup to NHL cellar

2002-03 —Two years after winning their second Stanley Cup, the Avs failed to make it out of the first round of the playoffs during a season when coach Bob Hartley was fired and Tony Granato was hired.

2006-07 —For the first time since the franchise moved to Denver, the Avs failed to make the playoffs, with Joe Sakic and Milan Hejduk the only two members left from the 2000-01 Stanley Cup champions.

2008-09 —The Avs' worst season since moving to Denver, with the team finishing 28th overall. Sakic played a career- low 15 games because of a back injury and an injured hand in a snow-blower accident. The team's 199 goals were a league low. General manager Francois Giguere was fired after the season.

2010-11 —General manager Greg Sherman traded young power forward Chris Stewart and upcoming defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk during the season and the team tanked, finishing 29th. Peter Forsberg made a failed comeback attempt before he and Adam Foote retired for good.

2012-13 —In a strike-shortened season, the Avs dealt with the holdout of leading scorer Ryan O'Reilly and played worse after he signed. The best hope for the franchise is receiving the No. 1 pick in the draft.